


you'd haunt all my what-ifs

by pippuri



Category: Teenage Bounty Hunters
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, OK there isn't a fandom tag for this show yet so i might have to repost, not really but close enough, sometimes u just gotta get through high school and leave home to become your Best Gay Self, this is a 'sterling and april reunite in college' fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:01:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26027635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pippuri/pseuds/pippuri
Summary: part of you was hoping that april would be at the tournament.but she's not -- either her new school doesn’t have debate, or maybe she just stopped doing it, or maybe, maybe she wasn’t good enough to make it.she’s mad at you, almost irreparably so, you’re sure, but you would have allowed her to hit you, beat you up, scream at you in front of the entire school.at least that would be something.//april leaves atlanta suddenly, and sterling goes to college in boston.(two chapters + christmas fluff)
Relationships: Sterling Wesley/April Stevens
Comments: 179
Kudos: 1187





	1. chapter one

April disappears over Spring Break your junior year. It’s a whole _thing_ at school and at church, because Mr. Stevens tried to press charges against Mrs. Stevens for kidnapping April and her sister -- it turns out the charges don’t stick when Mrs. Stevens files for divorce and gets full custody. Getting arrested for assault and solicitation evidently doesn't look good during divorce filings.

Hannah B. shows up to school in tears almost every day for a month, and you somehow become friends with her. She’s not so bad, you realize, once you started talking to her. At first it was just to try to get information on where April _went_ and why she’s not answering your texts and calls and emails, but after a while you discover you just like her company. She shows you her oil paintings hidden in the back of the AP Studio Art classroom, and you always thought she was kind of a bimbo who would end up married by sophomore year of college, but she tells you about her dreams to go to RISD and how April was tutoring her on the SAT so she could get in.

You realize you didn’t know a lot about April. 

/ 

She sends you a single text in the middle of August. 

_Fuck you for what you did_. 

You show it to Blair, and Blair just looks at you with something you’re disgusted to recognize as pity. 

“She should be _thankful_ ,” Blair says. “If we hadn’t gotten him, imagine what he could have done, to like her or her mom or something. Plus, it’s not like she even likes him anyways.”

“He’s still her dad,” you answer. “Like when we thought Mom blew up the abortion clinic. She was still Mom.”

Blair rolls her eyes and turns up her music. “But we _like_ Mom. Imagine if it was Grandpa or something. I’d literally _pay_ someone to arrest him, just for like a little bit.”

You type out a reply to April instead: _i’m sorry. i really am, i wouldn’t have done it if i knew you now,_ and then delete it all except _i’m sorry_. 

She leaves you on read.

/

The rest of high school goes by more quickly than you could even imagine. 

Even though you broke up (again), you tell Luke that you’re bisexual first, right before he goes in to take the ACT because it gives you just over four hours before he can text you about it. You’re halfway through what feels like your fifth panic attack when he texts back: _cool._

Blair refuses to apply to college, and instead joins AmeriCorps, choosing to work with a community gardening nonprofit that aimed to reduce school suspensions of young, Black kids. Grandpa disowns her when he finds out she was campaigning for AOC on the presidential ticket, and then disowns you when he finds out you’re not really _his_. It’s really the only thing that changes with the news Aunt Dana gave you -- you and Blair are still twins, and your mom is still your mom, and your dad is still your dad. It feels like it should be harder than this, but: you prayed about it for a long time, and Joseph took Jesus in as his son. You tell your parents this during a family therapy session, and your dad starts crying so hard you have to look away. 

In December, you make it all the way to Nationals for debate, and lose to a girl from Vermont who goes down on you in your hotel room after she wins. It’s a _lot_ , and she makes you come with just her tongue, and she kisses you after. You can still taste yourself in her mouth, and you text Blair immediately after because you’re worried about how _hot_ you found it. 

She texts back: _tmi_ and then _how was it ;))))_ and then _nah, i think that’s normal._

Part of you was hoping that April would be there -- it had been almost radio silence since she texted you in August. She still sometimes would post on her Instagram, but nothing that told you where she was, or how she was doing, or if she was happy. Just sunsets and fancy coffee drinks, and once a picture of her little sister curled up on a couch with their dog. 

But she’s not -- either her new school doesn’t have debate, or maybe she just stopped doing it, or maybe, _maybe_ she wasn’t good enough to make it. You don’t think it’s the last one. She only lost last year because Wu brought up her father, and there’s been rules handed down from the governing board that personal attacks against debaters were strictly forbidden. 

She’s mad at you, almost irreparably so, you’re sure, but you would have allowed her to hit you, beat you up, scream at you in front of the entire school. At least that would be _something_. 

/ 

You graduate as valedictorian and commit to Harvard. Blair is furious with you for sixteen hours for abandoning her alone in Atlanta. It’s not until you’re both drunk at a graduation party hosted by Hannah B. that she forgives you, and says in a voice that you barely recognize as belonging to her, “I don’t know how to be here without you. I’ve never been _alone_ ,” and then you’re both crying.

The party objectively sucks, so you leave, taking an uber to Yogurtopia and making Bowser give you extra-large yogurts with every topping, even the gross ones you know he only orders because they’re cheap. Ever since you were kidnapped, he’s refused to let either you or Blair in the field, but instead actually hired you at Yogurtopia and let you help with research on the side. He gives you the names of some of his contacts in Boston “in case of emergency”, and lets Blair use the vacant lot next to the store as a trial run garden. 

/

You tell your parents that you’re bi exactly a month before your flight up to Boston. Your mom thinks you’re pregnant when you sit them both down for a serious conversation, so it almost seems better when you tell them the truth. It’s like she’s relieved and disappointed at the same time, and you wish you had taken Blair’s advice and told them on the phone once you were in Cambridge. 

“You can still marry a boy though, sweetheart,” your mom says. “Wouldn’t that be easier?” 

You hate yourself; you nod. 

“Yeah, yeah mom, but …” You’re not able to finish, because your dad stands up and leaves the room. He doesn’t say anything, just shuts the door to his study behind him. 

It takes two weeks for him to talk to you. He knocks on your bedroom door one night, right before you’re about to go to sleep. 

“I joined an online support group,” he says quietly from your doorway. “For Christian parents of … of kids like you.”

Your heart is in your throat. You’re 18, and anyways conversion therapy seems too extreme for your parents, but April had mentioned it as her deepest fear once. 

“It’s run by a pastor, who’s … who’s a gay,” he continues and you realize you had been holding your breath. “I’m sorry, Sterling. How can I claim to be a good Christian, a good _father_ , if I don’t welcome you with open arms?”

He sits next to you on your bed. “I can’t say this is easy for me. A parent wants their child to have an easier time in life than they did and ….” he trails off, before taking a deep breath. “I’m trying Sterling, I promise. I love you, no matter what.”

It’s not perfect. It’s not perfect, but you let him hug you like you’re a little kid, and you pretend not to notice he’s crying. 

“Your mom and I are finding a new church. Some of the other parents in the support group have recommended a couple near us. You can come with us before you leave for college, if you want. Try ‘em out,” and that’s when you start to cry. 

/

Blair surprises you by buying a plane ticket to accompany you up to Boston and help you move in. Cambridge is _beautiful_ , even in the sticky, late August heat, and you can just imagine what it would look like in winter. You’re more excited than you would care to admit about the first snowfall. 

Your roommate’s name is Rachel, and she excitedly talks to you about her plans to major in chemistry while Blair rolls her eyes. 

“She seems like a _nerd_ ,” Blair whispers once you’ve left your room, and you elbow her in the side. 

“I _like_ her,” and Blair seems satisfied with your answer. 

The boys from across the hall invite you and Rachel and Blair to a party on the night before Blair’s flight back to Atlanta, and she pulls out a crop-top and skirt out of her bag, as if she was prepared to party. She ends up sleeping with your RA, and she tells you that he’s _terrible_ in bed, like fell-asleep-before-he-even-did-anything-for-her terrible, and you question the ethics of a junior RA sleeping with her, even if she’s not a student at Harvard.

You go with Blair to the airport, and she gifts you her Charlie Card with $1.32 left on it as a welcome to Boston gift. It’s not even enough to get you back to Harvard, but it makes you emotional which makes Blair emotional which results in you both crying in the departures hall of Logan Airport. 

“See you at Christmas, bitch,” Blair says. 

“I’ll text you every day,” you answer. 

/

The first months of college fly by. You take the required expository writing class, a comparative religion class, a biology lab, and a class in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department that you’re so scared to show up to you almost drop out before the first class. You’re glad you don’t -- it’s a class almost entirely full of other gay students. You’ve never been surrounded by this many gay people before, and you text Blair after the first class: _imagine what willingham could have been like if people could have actually been who they are._

She replies after a couple hours, writing:

_i mean i WAS who i am._

_oh you mean like gay people lol_

_yeah maybe ezequiel could have been nicer if he wasn’t so far in the closet he was basically in fucking narnia._

Neither of you mention April. It seems too obvious to say, too big to be anything except left unsaid.

/ 

Your Womens and Gender studies class has a required outside lecture component, where you’re meant to present in class on a lecture you attend at another institution. Professor Greene provides a list of eligible lectures on the first day of class, and you make the massive mistake of signing up based on topic rather than location. 

When you realize the university your chosen lecture, ‘Depictions of Sexualities in Medieval Islamic Texts’ is hosted at isn’t in Cambridge, or even Boston, but instead at a college like _thirty_ minutes outside of the city, you write a desperate email to your professor begging to switch to another lecture. She writes back, kindly, but firmly, letting you know that unless you want to do the research to find a lecture and get it approved, you’ll have to attend the one you signed up for. She includes a link to a bus schedule between MIT and Harvard and Wellesley, and you resign yourself to the trip. 

/

The bus ride is nice, you guess. It’s early Saturday morning, and it’s full of girls who clearly spent the previous night at some party. They’re all dressed up still, wearing heels and smudged makeup, loudly talking about what sounds like which dining hall they’ll be going to for brunch. You try to do some of your reading on the bus, but the fall leaves outside keep distracting you -- living in the city, you hadn’t really realized what all the reds and golds and oranges look like all together. 

The bus ride isn’t as long as you were worrying -- only thirty minutes and you’re deposited on a campus that looks like the suburban sister of Harvard, with red brick buildings and an insanely modern-looking student center. You stop a girl outside of the student center, and ask her for directions to the auditorium. 

She smiles, and offers to walk you, pointing out the buildings on the way. You realize halfway there she thinks that you’re a prospective student, which is humiliating in a way you can’t really put your finger on, so you just nod and smile. 

You’re late to the lecture, and slide into a seat in the very back row, right next to the projector. It’s an interesting lecture, given by an alum of the college who was in the middle of her PhD at Oxford, but you’re distracted by a girl three rows in front of you. 

She’s got her light brown hair tied back in a high ponytail, and she’s twisting part of it around her fingers. Every so often, she leans over to the girl next to her, and whispers something. Everytime she leans over, you catch a glimpse of a tattoo on the back of her neck. It takes about half the lecture, but you figure out it’s a cross, done in heavy, black ink. 

The lecture ends, and you raise your hand, eager to ask about the lecturer’s experience doing fieldwork within libraries in Spain. When you begin to speak, the girl turns to look at you. 

You freeze. 

It’s April. 

It’s _April_ , here, sitting three rows ahead of you. April has a _tattoo._

“Sorry, did you have a question?” The lecturer asks, looking at you slightly confused. 

You just gape at April, and shake your head. It doesn’t really matter anymore, even if you could remember how to make words come out of your mouth. 

April turns around, her face blank and passive like she doesn’t even recognize you. You’re second guessing yourself, wondering if it’s possible April just has a very convincing doppelganger here in Massachusetts, when your phone buzzes. 

_Meet me outside, after_. 

She turns and glances at you, and you nod slightly. She smiles, and you’re not sure if it’s because she’s happy to see you, or because she’s thinking of all the ways she’s going to beat you up once you step foot out of the building. 

The rest of the question session seems to last a lifetime, and you tap out a text to Blair: _i just ran into april???_

She sends back about a thousand question marks, and then _what do you mean april???_ then fourteen texts that are just your name, all in caps. 

/

You leave the auditorium before April, and she barely glances at you when she gets onto the quad, just keeps walking. She’s halfway across when she turns around, and looks at you like you’re stupid. 

“Aren’t you coming?”

You still are having trouble forming words, so you just walk to her. She looks at you, hard, and you think she’s about to attack you.

Instead, she just twists her hair into a bun, and asks, “Want to get brunch?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY i love this show and i love enemies to lovers and i also love boston (apologies)  
> as always i literally Live off kudos and comments


	2. chapter two

You say yes, because what else can you really say to that? April’s dorm isn’t one of the pretty, old ones you glimpsed on your walk to the auditorium -- it’s set back from the main campus, and kind of looks like an office building. 

You don’t tell her that. 

/

It’s uncomfortable -- you and April had never done the cold silence thing. It was always angry snipes at each other, or obvious one-ups, or just straight-up threats. Never this, with April just watching you, completely expressionless. 

“Uh, have you seen Hannah? She’s in Providence …” you try, and April just kind of raises her eyebrow. 

“You want to talk about Hannah?” she asks, and you awkwardly take a sip of your coffee. 

“No, I just -- ” 

She interrupts, and the familiar edge of cruelty enters her voice again, “You _just_ ? I didn’t ask you to brunch to talk about high school, _Sterling_.” She looks angry, but she’s pulled a strand of hair out of her bun, twisting it around her fingers. She’s nervous, you realize. “Why’d you do it?” 

Some girls at the table next to you look over, and April seems to notice you’re being eavesdropped on. She gives them a forced smile, leans over and hisses, “We’re doing this upstairs. Those are my first-years,” and she practically drags you by the arm out of the dining hall and into the elevator. There’s a sheet of construction paper tacked inside the elevator, with the pictures of RAs and other student leaders grinning back at you. Surprised, you see April’s familiar face (familiar smile) pinned next to the words ‘Fourth Floor!’ written in pink sharpie. 

“You’re an RA?” you ask, confused. “Aren’t you a freshman?”

“Sophomore,” she says quietly. “I graduated early -- I couldn’t really be at home anymore.” It’s like the anger drained out of her somewhere on the walk to the elevator, and you softly touch the back of her hand. 

She doesn’t move away from you. 

/

April’s room is small, with books piled on almost every available surface. The walls are covered in old maps -- you can see the USSR, and Ceylon, and Czechoslovakia. There’s almost no photos. Your room is absolutely _covered_ in photos, and the only one you can see is a small framed picture of April and her mom and her sister, sitting framed on her desk. Her sister is smiling happily at the camera, but April and her mom just look tired. 

She sits on the floor, leaning against her bed, and motions for you to sit across from her. It’s uncomfortable on the floor, but you don’t really want to sit next to her, side by side on her bed like nothing had ever gone wrong. 

“I’m sorry,” you start, and April laughs. 

“You’re _sorry_ , Sterling? Why did you do it?”

You can’t look her in the eye. 

“He _assaulted_ a woman, April. He beat her up really, really bad. And she was,” and you drop your voice, “a sex worker.” 

“I was at the trial, I know exactly what he did. And he deserved -- deserves -- to _rot_ for it,” she almost spits out the last few words. “But Sterl, why did it have to be _you_ ? Why did _you_ have to be the one to destroy my family?”

 _Oh_. 

Maybe you could tell her the truth, or one of the truths. _We needed the money_ or _It made me feel important_ , but none of it feels like it’s giving the answer April wants. 

“I’m sorry,” you say again, and she doesn’t say anything. 

You sit in silence like that for longer than you thought was possible; April with her head tipped back on her bed, you staring at the map above her desk, silently reading names of towns that probably don’t even exist anymore. 

Finally, _finally_ , she looks up at you. 

“Can you go?” 

It’s not what you wanted to hear, but _yeah_ , you probably deserve that. 

“Will you text me?” you ask, but you’re not even really sure you want that. 

“Maybe,” she says. “I don’t know.” 

/

Somehow, you manage to find the bus stop to get back to school. Your phone’s dying, but you waste the rest of the battery to call Blair. She’s left you about a thousand texts, and you don’t bother to read beyond the last one ( _STERLING WESLEY if you don’t reply to me i’m going to have to assume april killed you and threw your body in the charles)._

Her phone goes to voicemail and you leave what you’re sure is an absolutely incomprehensible message.

You try to make sense of the notes you took on the lecture, but it all kind of blurs together, and you can only think about the way April looked when she turned around and saw you. The way her hair looked, spread out on her bed, the way she grabbed you and pushed you in the elevator. 

Your phone buzzes, and you almost drop it, your hands are shaking so much. It’s not April, of course, but your heart still falls a little when you see Blair’s text. 

_you got it baaaaaaad_

_why don’t you text her yourself?_

You pause for a second, reply: _i want it to be her choice, i guess_. 

_damn you sound like mom or something, sterl._

/

April doesn’t text you. 

You go to class, and get your first C on a biology lab, and spend an hour crying about it while feeling incredibly stupid for crying about it. Rachel’s high school boyfriend invites you both to a party at his roommate’s frat, and you go, mostly for the experience. It’s loud, and you definitely destroy your shoes, and the party is inexplicably themed on classic literature. 

One of the frat brothers flirts with you, and you end up making out with him in a corner because he’s hot and kind of reminds you of Luke. He asks you if you want to go upstairs, and when you manage to let him know you’re 100% not interested in having sex, he just shrugs and yells something that sounds like “What about ice cream?”.

You spend the rest of the party in the frat house kitchen, eating ice cream out of the carton with him, and he tells you about the coffee shop near Central T stop that he has already been permanently banned from, and you tell him about your past as a teenage bounty hunter. You give him your number before you leave with an almost incoherent Rachel. 

He texts you the next morning, and you hate yourself for being disappointed the notification isn’t from April. 

You don’t text him back. 

/ 

Rachel tries to convince you to come home with her to Connecticut for Thanksgiving, but you have a ton of work to do, and you don’t really want any other family’s Thanksgiving but your own. You’re in the middle of a ‘we made it through midterms’ Gossip Girl marathon with her the night before her parents were driving up to get her when your phone buzzes. 

You’re so sure it’s Blair begging you one last time to _please_ come back for Thanksgiving that you don’t even look at the message until later, until you’re in bed and dreading the lonely weekend on an empty campus. 

_My dorm is doing a Friends-giving event, and because I’m helping to run it, I can invite whoever I want. I figured you wouldn’t go back to Atlanta for the weekend, so if you want to come and help out you can._

April always texted like that -- full sentences with proper capitalization. Kind of the opposite of the way Blair texted, but they’re the only two who you could pinpoint just from a single text. It’s somewhat of a shock to see her message, stacked next to the two most recent from her: _Meet me outside, after_ and _Fuck you for what you did_ . You screenshot the text and send it to Blair, who responds almost immediately with: _DUH YES??!_

So you respond: _yeah, sounds good_. 

It seems like close to an _eternity_ watching the three little dots shimmer -- maybe she’ll remember that she hates you, and that you are quite literally the last person she wants to spend Thanksgiving with. 

_Good. Bring a pie, it’s a potluck and no one’s signed up for dessert._

You breathe a sigh of relief, and just like her message. 

Then: _I’m looking forward to seeing you, Sterling_ . And then _:)_

/

April meets you at the bus stop, and you walk in silence to her dorm. You’ve brought your backpack with some work to do in case it turns out this event is just as awful and heartbreaking as the last time you were here, and balance a blueberry pie in your arms. April scrunches up her nose when you tell her what kind of pie you brought, and she sighs, “Ugh, I guess it’s better than _nothing_.” 

The Friends-giving dinner is in one of the floor common rooms -- it’s cozier than you were expecting, with maybe a dozen girls milling around and drinking what one girl tells you is grape juice with an exaggerated wink. Somehow, someone had managed to roast a whole turkey in the little oven (your money is on April), and there’s mashed potatoes and gravy and something that looks like a green bean casserole that was cooked for _way_ too long. April gives you a plate, and her fingers brush yours for a second. You can’t tell if it’s on purpose. 

You spend most of the dinner half-listening to the friendly chatter around you, and half-watching April, who’s seemingly determined to work for the entire event and not enjoy herself at all. One of the girls tries to include you in the conversation, asking how you know April, and if you like Wellesley. 

When you tell her you were friends in high school, she answers with, “Oh, so you’re from Arizona, too?” 

You look at her, confused. “Um, no, Atlanta.” 

She looks just as confused and glances up at April, who is washing dishes in the sink. “She said she’s from Tucson ….” and trails off. You can tell April is listening -- her back stiffens and she’s been washing the same dish for the whole conversation. 

“No, um, we met doing debate. We didn’t go to the same high school, just reconnected when we found out we were both in the area. I’m at Harvard,” you explain, and April relaxes. 

/

You help a sophomore, who proudly tells you that she’s Canadian which is why she didn’t go home (“ _We_ celebrated Thanksgiving like a month ago”), clean up the leftovers. April seems comfortable here in a way you’ve never really seen before -- she’s laughing, and flicks some of the soap bubbles from the sink at one of the girls. The girl fake pouts, and kisses April’s cheek as she leaves.

Your heart sinks -- it’s like the whole ‘flirting with Luke’ thing again, but somehow even worse because you know this time it’s real. 

You check your phone subtly; there’s a bus leaving in 10 minutes, so you quietly excuse yourself from helping to clean up, and walk quickly to April’s room to grab your backpack. It’s rude, and you know you should be just as happy to be her friend but all you can think of is her hopeful, sad face when she asked you _Maybe someday, though?_ and -- you were stupid to think that it meant anything, that she would even _remember_ that. 

It’s dark in her room, and you have to grope around to find your backpack. Part of you wants to call Blair and cry, right there in April’s dorm room, surrounded by all her things, but you don’t want to have to wait, alone and in the cold, for the next bus. 

April’s door opens, and you hope with every fiber of your being that it’s one of her first-years, looking for their RA. You turn and -- of course it isn’t. April’s standing there, silhouetted in the doorway, looking somewhat confused. 

“I’ve got to go,” you say. “I remembered I have a lab meeting this afternoon, and I can’t miss the bus.”

“On Thanksgiving?”

 _Shit_. 

“Yeah, my lab partner is … Russian and she doesn’t celebrate. We figured we would get a good spot in the library.”

She doesn’t look like she believes you, but moves to the side to let you out. 

“Can I at least walk you to the bus stop?” She bites her lip, and takes a deep breath before she keeps talking. “I was hoping to get to talk to you. Alone.”

“I know where it is,” you reply. “Anyways, wouldn’t want your _girlfriend_ to get jealous or anything.” It’s mean, and definitely unnecessary, but you don’t want her to have the final word. 

“Girlfriend?” She sounds so genuinely confused that you pause and turn. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

You’re feeling mean, and petty, and like _I’m looking forward to seeing you, Sterling_ didn’t mean what you hoped it did. “Yeah, better tell the girl who kissed you in the kitchen that. Let her down easy, I know you’re good at that.” 

You immediately regret it. April looks like you punched her in the stomach, and you whisper, “Sorry,” but it’s too late. 

“Leave if you want, Sterling, I don’t care. But that’s not fucking _fair_. You should know better than anyone why I didn’t want to come out in high school.”

“I know,” you say quietly, and it’s somehow suddenly a fight about something else. Most things with April are, you realize. “I didn’t mean it like that, I know.”

She just shakes her head, and turns on her heel, slamming her bedroom door behind her. 

/

You don’t leave. You sit in the entry hall of April’s dorm, and miss the bus you were going to take, and one more after that. You want nothing more than to stand up, and walk right back up to the fourth floor, knock on April’s door and … you’re not sure. 

So you do. 

You climb the stairs, because in your mind that’s somehow a more romantic, more dramatic gesture, but it’s really just tiring. You file away a mental note to maybe take Rachel up on her constant offers of running together before class. 

April’s door is unlocked and slightly ajar, but you knock anyways. You can see her inside, intently reading something at her desk, the way her hair catches the light from the fairy lights strung around the room. 

She looks up, and she sees you, and you swear to God she smiles.

/

“I’m sorry,” you say in the doorway. “For like literally _everything_ , I didn’t mean to blame you for not coming out. I don’t, you know. Blame you.”

She carefully marks her page in her book, and looks at you. “It’s all I wanted too, Sterl,” and when you look confused, she sighs and says, “To hold your hand.” She stands up and walks to you, and for a moment you think she’s about to kiss you, but she just reaches behind you and closes her door. She’s so close to you that you’re sure she can hear, can _feel_ the way your heart is beating in your chest, and she looks up at you. 

“We can now, though,” she says, so quietly you can barely hear. She doesn’t move away from you, her hand still on the doorknob under your arm, so close you can hear her breathing. It’s uneven, and she clicks the lock into place. 

_Oh._

April’s on her tiptoes, and she whispers, “Is it okay if I kiss you?” and you’re so shocked all you can do is nod. It’s exactly how you remembered it, and completely new. Her hands are on your hips, and then around your waist, and then under the hem of your shirt, and they’re _cold,_ digging into your skin like she’s trying to find warmth. She’s backed you completely against the door, and you think you should be embarrassed how much you _like_ it, how much you like thinking about April completely in charge. 

But you’re not.

She could do anything, you’re sure, and you’d thank her. 

/ 

After, you’re lying next to her in her twin bed, her back to you, and you can trace the tattoo on the back of her neck. It’s not the only one she has, you learned, there’s a daffodil outlined on her ribcage, and when you brushed your fingers, your lips, your tongue against it, she gasped "Forgiveness _”_ like it meant something. 

You had paused, and she had looked down at you and rolled her eyes. “Not _you_ , Sterl, the flowers. They mean forgiveness.” 

“My mom said they meant new beginnings,” you answered, and April looks at you with an emotion you can’t really name. 

“That works too,” she had said, and then, “but, can we please not talk about your mom while I’m topless?” 

She’s fallen asleep, you realize, and here you are, finally, just sleeping next to her. You take a selfie of yourself, and send it to Blair, the side of April’s head just barely in the frame. 

_IS THAT APRIL????????_ she texts back after a few minutes, then _OH MY GOD STERLING IS THAT APRIL???_

You don’t respond, and let Blair go to voicemail when she calls (all three times). 

Instead, you turn on your side, and press a kiss to April’s jaw. You fall asleep, your hand loosely tangled with hers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for all your love and support on this fic!! i hope the second chapter lives up to expectations :)
> 
> (as always, comments and kudos are so so so appreciated)


	3. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay! turns out i wasn't done w these characters!! here's a little epilogue :))

You fall into an easy pattern. April comes and visits you on the weekends, you spend all day studying in the public library or visiting a new museum or just riding the T together and getting off when something seems interesting, you go back to Wellesley with her on the bus, spend the night in her tiny single bed. 

She buys you a bus punch pass the weekend before Christmas break. “For next semester,” she says, and your heart beats so loud you’re sure she can hear it. Then, you give her your present -- round trip tickets to Atlanta. She had mentioned that she wasn’t planning on going home for Christmas, that she spent last year alone in the dorms, eating Christmas dinner in the dining hall with a handful of international students who couldn’t afford the trip back home. It made you sad in a way that made you impulsively buy her tickets to Atlanta, booked into the same flight as you. 

Her face is blank when she reads the card, and fingers the tickets, and you suddenly realize that this was probably not the best present to spring on someone. Blair had said it was _romantic_ , but you’re very quickly remembering that Blair’s longest lasting relationship has been with her Doc Martens and the semester long flirtation with someone called Jamie you’ve been receiving endless updates on, and you probably definitely shouldn’t be taking relationship advice from her. 

“Um,” you say, desperately trying to back pedal, “Like only if you want to come, if you don’t I can return them or something. Or like, sell them on Facebook Marketplace. I just thought maybe, um. You might want to help us pick out a tree, and maybe go to the midnight service with me and my dad. But like -- ” April cuts you off, gently taking your hand that’s nervously twisting the hem of your sweater, and kissing you. 

It shuts you up effectively. 

“What about everyone?” She asks as she pulls away, and _everyone_ is heavy with old classmates and pastors and the grandmas who like to gossip during the coffee after services. 

“I don’t care,” you say, and she opens her mouth to say something, probably about your parents or what _exactly_ Christmas dinner is going to be like, but you continue, “We don’t really live in Atlanta anymore.” 

/

Your father never really _got a job_ like he was supposed to, and once his parents cut him off partly because of his homosexual adopted daughter, but mostly his support of her, your family sold your house in Atlanta. Blair sent you snapchats of your entire childhood being packed up into boxes, and then a constant stream of interior decor pinterest boards once she moved into the basement of the new house. 

You didn’t have it in you to let her know that a hundred trips to Ikea wouldn’t change the fact that her room was entirely underground, but as long as she was happy there it meant you got a real bedroom for school breaks. 

The plane ride back home was rough, and April sits ramrod straight in her seat, her eyes squeezed shut, loud guided meditation playing through her headphones, her nails digging deep half moons into your thigh. You try to watch a biopic of Ruth Bader Ginsburg you downloaded onto your phone, but the sharp gasps April makes every time the plane sudders makes it incredibly difficult to do so. Finally, you give up, and push the armrest between you up, and gesture for her to lie down on your lap. She gives you a _look_ , soft and something you’re still getting used to. April Stevens, looking at you like you were never sworn enemies. 

She falls asleep quickly, and your leg does too but -- you don’t really care. 

/

Blair picks you up at the airport, driving the shittiest truck you’ve ever set eyes on. 

“I’m trying to play _down_ the redneck stereotype, Blair,” and she laughs. 

The drive back to Lawrenceville is only like 45 minutes, but April keeps half-falling asleep on your shoulder. Every time her eyes droop shut, Blair wiggles her eyebrows at you, and shoots suggestive looks between you and April. 

“‘And thus,” Blair says in the worst English accents, “the Ice Queen melt-eth,’ or so said Shakespeare.” 

You can feel April smile into your shoulder, and she says drowsily, “No, he didn’t.” 

/

Your parents won’t let April sleep in the same room as you. You let her take your comfortable, expensive queen bed in the room Blair unpacked for you, and resign yourself to sleeping on the pull-out couch that formerly lived in your pool house and now takes up half of the space in Blair’s damp basement. 

Dinner on the first night is sufficiently awkward. Blair tries to keep the conversation going, but she makes one too many jokes about women’s colleges for it to be anything except uncomfortable. Shockingly, your dad seems to have come around on the whole bisexual thing, and he reveals he’s always wished you and April hadn’t drifted apart. 

“I always thought you were a good influence on Sterling,” he says, and April blushes. He finds out she’s taking a class on the history of law and education in the United States, and they quickly spiral into what sounds like an argument (A _debate_ , April would say, with that slightly feral look she gets when she knows she’s about to win) about the intricacies of New Jersey v. _something._

It’s your mom who ruins the fragile peace that historic supreme court cases have brought to the table. She interrupts April’s eager monologue about unreasonable search and seizures, saying, “So, April, what _are_ you?” Blair glances at you, and you look at April who is frozen halfway through cutting her pork chop. 

Everyone is silent. 

April finally finishes cutting her food, and puts it in her mouth, chews slowly. 

“I’m a lesbian, Mrs. Wesley. What are you?”

Blair laughs, and if you didn’t know her as well as you do, you’d think it was genuine. Your mom gets up from the table, ostensibly to “get dessert from the kitchen!” but she’s gone for way too long to just be getting the lemon cake you saw cooling on the counter when you arrived. 

/

You sneak upstairs into your bedroom as soon as your parents are asleep. April’s still awake, sitting cross-legged on your pink bedspread from elementary school, her hair in two neat braids. 

“I remember this quilt,” she says. “We spilled chocolate milk on it, in like third grade.”

“Yeah,” you say, and cross the room, sit next to her. “Right here,” and you move aside Mr. Woofs, a fluffy stuffed dog Blair probably left on your bed as a joke. “I could never get the stain out.”

April hums, and flops back against the pillows. 

“I’m sorry about my mom,” you say quietly, and April gives you a small smile.

“Actually, that was on the better side of the reactions I was expecting? I like your dad.”

April pulls you down so you’re half lying on her, half on Mr. Woofs, and she presses a kiss to the soft spot under your ear. 

“Is it bad,” she whispers, “if I want to absolutely _ravish_ you in your childhood bedroom?”

Your brain absolutely short-circuits, and all you can think of to say is, “Uh, this actually isn’t my childhood bedroom,” which makes April roll her eyes and flip you over onto your back, so she’s straddling your waist. 

You’re suddenly so incredibly grateful that Blair sleeps in the basement, otherwise you would probably never hear the end of this. 

/

Shopping for a Christmas tree has always been your favorite part of the holiday. Usually, you would go with Blair and your mom and your dad right after church on the first Sunday of advent, and choose the biggest, most perfect tree. This year, Blair forced your parents to wait until you had returned home from Boston before getting a tree, which you were thankful for until you arrived at the tree lot to discover eight of the ugliest trees you’ve ever seen. 

Your dad makes a half-hearted joke about Charlie Brown trees, and you and April try to figure out which one was the most acceptable. April’s quiet around your family which is -- weird. She usually can’t _stop_ talking, to the point where you’ve had to initiate a rule about talking during sex, after April had talked herself through a logical gap in her economics paper while she had three fingers inside of you. 

The chosen tree is slightly shorter than you, and your mom’s already plotting on how to ‘beef it up’ with the tinsel and garlands back home. Decorating it takes significantly less time than usual, and you end up stringing all the leftover garlands around the dining room, hanging the extra ornaments off it. Your dad gives you spiked eggnog, and Blair gets way too drunk on the mulled wine your mom makes every year. You end up watching Die Hard with Blair and April -- it’s Blair’s favorite Christmas movie; yours is Rudolph, but you took a vote and April voted against you. 

Blair gave her a high five, and said, “I guess you’re not so bad, Ice Queen,” which makes April laugh and -- this is probably the last place you thought you would be, sitting on a couch in nowhere suburb, Georgia with _April Stevens_ curled into your side, laughing with Blair. 

/

The new church your dad found is only a short drive away from the new house, and in the biggest shock of the century, _Blair_ is directing the pageant. She glares at you when you open your mouth to tease her, so April gets to be the one to react, saying “That sounds really nice, Blair.” Your mom gives April a half-smile when she says it, which makes you kind of glad you lost the chance to tease Blair. 

She recruits both you and April to be two of the lead angels, which you quickly learn means glorified child wranglers, desperately trying to get a group of a dozen elementary schoolers to quietly proceed around the sanctuary. One of the little girls playing a shepherd starts screaming when her brother smacks in the face with his shepherd's crook, and you watch with a kind of silent awe as April separates them, and quietly has a conversation with the little boy. After he apologizes, April catches you watching her, and you file away _April with kids_ as something you probably shouldn’t feel quite so many things about. 

The service is chaotic, and you end up needing to carry one of the little angels in your arms because she has a meltdown halfway down the aisle, and Blair spends the entire service quietly threatening the middle schoolers who keep trying to trip up the scripture readers by making faces, and April looks like she’s about to cry when the pastor invites his husband to join him in blessing the donations to a local domestic violence center, and it’s without a doubt the loveliest Christmas you’ve ever had. 

After, you’re helping to fold and return all the costumes to the college student who introduced herself as the costume director very seriously, before laughing and saying, “I’m Jamie, Pastor Mark’s niece. You’re Blair’s twin, yeah?” 

_Jamie_ , April mouths at you from across the room, and pointing at the girl and then at Blair who is turning dark red, and trying to push April out of the room. 

“Blair’s told me _all_ about you,” you answer, and Jamie blushes before taking the stack of angel wings out of your arms. 

Suddenly, Blair directing the Christmas pageant makes sense. 

/

It starts snowing lightly as you drive home, just you and April. Snow isn’t quite so exciting now that you’ve spent December in Massachusetts where the inconvenience of it quickly outpaced how beautiful it was, but it’s something special to see it float down on Christmas Eve. 

“Pull over,” April exclaims, and she’s been in Massachusetts a year longer than you, but still acts like the Georgia girl she is whenever it snows. She jumps out of the truck, and spreads her arms wide, tipping her face up towards the night sky. “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it Sterl?” 

“Yeah,” you answer, _I love you_ , you think but you don’t say it. You just watch her standing there, the headlights from Blair’s truck making her hair shine, the snow falling gently all around you. 

Soon, you’ll get back into the truck, and soon you’ll be back home, where you’ll have to sneak into your own bedroom, and soon you’ll be waking up with April curled into your side, but for now -- it’s just you, and the dark countryside, and April smiling in a way that makes you wonder how you ever thought you hated her. 

“Yeah, it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you all enjoyed !!! comments / kudos are my lifeblood!

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY i love this show and i love enemies to lovers and i also love boston (apologies)  
> as always i literally Live off kudos and comments


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